Fukushima: 7. Atonement
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Previously on Fukushima We just went down and turned the valves. It has nothing to do with who's brave or who's a coward, but I get the thank yous and Hideyoshi Yosaki gets the averted eyes because his team didn't succeed. The radiation levels were too high and he ordered his partner to turn back.

He has to live with the shame of that while everybody wants to shake my hand. Why do you seek forgiveness? I'm the one whose job it was to make sure the disaster couldn't happen. I am Tepco. Do you know how rare you are?

Fukushima Episode 7

Kano! Hi! It's so sweet of you to remember my birthday! Oh yes, it's my birthday. 24. No big deal. Oh no, nothing. We're having a few drinks tonight. We just came out of a seminar. Ethics in Journalism. It's going well. I handed in my dissertation on Fukushima last week. Depends when he watches it, but it could be next week.

No, not the fishermen. I changed the subject. It's more about the nuclear disaster now. So what's up with you? How is everybody? I miss the ladies sometimes. Just sometimes. So what's going on? Oh no. Okay. When? Is the funeral up there or are they bringing him back down to Tokyo? When is it? No, that's fine. I'll skip the afternoon. I'll drive.

Okay. Thanks, Kano. See you Friday. Excuse me. Akiko-san? Yes? I'm Sanae Suto, his daughter. You're the eldest. Yes. I'm so sorry about your father. Thank you. Is your sister here? Yes. She's around. I can't see her right now. It's lovely to meet you. And you. Do you live in Namie? I saw you arrive by car. Oh, no. I walked here for a few months. I left last year. I live in Tokyo. Oh, me too.

What do you do there? I decided to go back to university. That's great. What do you study? Journalism. That's wonderful. Are you coming to the temple? I believe so. Can I walk you to your car? Oh, of course. So, you knew my father when you were here. Not well. We got to know each other a little bit before I left. I see. There was a lady who was crying through the service. Do you know who she is? Oh, that's Mrs. Ueda.

Was she and father... Oh, no. At least, I'd be very surprised if they were. They certainly weren't when I left. Well, I wanted to give you this. It was in his house, on the kitchen table. He enjoyed writing letters. I didn't know that. He would send us letters from time to time, talking about the sea and the birds. Mainly those cicadas he loved. The higurashi? Yes. I suppose he liked the solitude.

Dear Akiko-san, you asked me why I came to Fukushima.

I never answered that question, did I? I will try here. It is night. You left a few hours ago. I have just refused your beloved cesium test for the last time. You have just discovered I have cancer. I could see you upset. I have grown so fond of you, and I humbly suggest you have grown fond of me. My dear Akiko-san,

You're the rare one. You're the rare and marvelous bird. Please know that. That you might not know that, or that you may one day forget. Oh, pains me terribly. Which is why I must say it, because now it is written, and what is written cannot be taken away. May you always give off the light you give, the kind of light which illuminates the world. Mine.

Like a Caravaggio, my dismal little candle did nothing but accentuate the darkness. I have come to a painful realization that goodness like yours cannot in fact be achieved. I believed it could once. I always saw myself as a good man becoming a great marvel, moral pillar of society in the making.

By the time I realized I was not marble but simple stone, it was too late. And being stone, I was forced to watch, frozen, helpless, as men would approach and chip away at me piece by piece. Men with the promise of money, men with the promise of power, men with the promise of status. I have often asked myself,

If I had been in Plant Manager Yoshida's position, if I would have seized the opportunity to be the man I believed I was. And I have concluded that, had I been in Yoshida's position, I would only have showed myself to be the man that I am, and that would have been far from enough. And that haunts me. Yoshida was a devout Buddhist, and he understood something I never did.

which was that problems are not the anomaly, they are the norm. And a life without problems is a life without meaning. After the girls left home, I spent the next 20 years trying to pretend I could eradicate problems forever. That there would be a day I would wake up clear-headed, having solved them all, and I would be able to unclench my fist at last.

What is certain is that had it been me in that chair in Daiichi, Japan as we know it today would not exist. I know this to be true. In the van today you asked me if it's all about doing as you are told. How do you explain Yoshida? Your question left me speechless because it seems to me that in that moment you had undone a life's work.

How do you explain, Yoshida? The official investigation concluded it was the plant manager's decision on several occasions to ignore the orders of his hierarchy that was the most conclusive reason the plant was saved. When I read that, I racked my brains to think of anyone in my 50 years at Tepico who would have behaved in such a way.

I could think of none except the man who happened to be working that day. That's what wakes me up in the middle of the night. What if it hadn't been his shift? What if he had been sick? What if he had decided to take his dog to the vet? My absence would have made no difference that day. But his...

Yoshida's death in July 2013 slipped by me unnoticed, overshadowed by the impending tragedy unfolding in my own home. On the day he died, I had an oncologist's appointment with Yoko, the last we would attend. Yoko was so supportive of me in the years following the disaster, more than I deserved.

and they were very, very difficult years. At least, I convinced myself they were. But in reality, was a few eggs thrown at my car. Yoko means child of the sea. Before she died, she said she wished her ashes to be scattered in the sea around the dike plant because she hated the idea that I should see my career as a failure.

I think she thought her ashes were in some way stronger than the radioactive waste, that I would look out over the water and not just see contamination, but know that she was also there, that love was there, all mixed together. She said, ''That's what the human experience is.'' I knew it was probably the morphin's idea, and I knew it would not work.

But it was what she wanted. And I told myself that perhaps her wisdom was greater than my selfishness, and that I would one day regret not doing it. So I came to Fukushima. This was 2015, remember? Long before restrictions were lifted. I couldn't possibly come with ashes as a civilian, so I organized a visit in an official capacity.

I traveled up by car with the urn in the passenger seat talking to it as if Yoko were there. When I arrived at the plant, I flushed my badge and showed papers and saw in the distance my welcome party. I was of course a senior executive. There is a certain protocol when a senior executive visits. When I arrived, I realized the first flaw in my plan.

that I wouldn't be alone and was very unlikely to find a moment to be alone, certainly outside at the seafront. I emptied half the ashes into a bag, tied it at the neck and slipped it into my briefcase. The day was interminable, excruciating.

They talked on and on about cleanup and ice walls under the ground and the radioactive wastewater and robots in the reactor chambers and all I could think of was how to get away just for 10 minutes. The tour ended with lunch and I excused myself saying I had to make a call. I left the building and walked towards the seafront. It had been a long time since I had visited Daiichi.

The sea was a lot farther away than I remembered. When I finally reached the water, I saw that snubby barrier stretched out in front of me, still there. I knelt down behind a large white storage tank and opened my briefcase. I unknotted the plastic bag, said a prayer, and scattered some of the contents into the sea. What are you doing? None of your business, young man.

I work security for this facility, sir. So whatever it is you're doing is very much my business. I'm performing a ceremony. A ceremony? What's in the bag? My wife's ashes. The dumping of any materials not pre-approved is forbidden. This water... You are concerned that I'm contaminating this water. Is that a joke?

If you proceed with this activity, I will have no choice but to report you to the Chief of Security. Report me? Do you have the first idea who I am? I am Kyoshi Stoh, Tepco Senior Executive Director, and you will allow me to go about my business, or you will not have heard the last of this. I thought he took a step back, but I'm not so sure he did.

Instead, he looked at me, spray from the sea on my glasses, little wet patches on my knees, my hands covered in ash, and the glacial little bastard took pity on me. His eyes narrowed for a second. He turned on his heels and continued his patrol.

I suppose I would have found the irony of it all amusing if I hadn't been clutching a plastic bag containing half of my wife's ashes. So what should have been a moment dedicated to reflection on a long marriage and happy times and children and holidays and dogs and, yes, luxuries?

What should have been a ceremony undertaken with a sober, peaceful, clean mind was instead undertaken with rage and hatred in my heart. I was angry with Yoko for thinking that this would ever have worked. How selfish to ask this of me. Did she see my pain at all? As the rest of her ashes swirled and mingled with the yellow form of the sea,

I all but cursed her for leaving me here, a pale shadow of the man who began with such pure intent. Anything good I once was is floating in this sick water. Anything good I ever wanted to be is drifting away, then back, then away, then back, but always away in this poisonous sea.

When all traces of her had vanished into the filth, I turned towards the car park and my little ceremony was over. So I left the plant and drove until sundown among empty fields, down cracked roads and past endless overgrown slabs of concrete where people used to live and talk and drink.

Past driveways knotted with weeds, where parents would straighten their children's hair as the school bus arrived, never contemplating the precariousness of these simple acts. Why would they?

I didn't like former Prime Minister Naoto Kanakiko-san. That's the truth of it. Nobody threw me out of the think tank. I couldn't work with him because I found his rebirth as an anti-nuclear activist disingenuous. That's not to say artificial, but had he not been ousted that same October, would he still have had his epiphany?

Of course, to be consistent, I was obliged to turn the same level of scrutiny on myself and found my own convictions a little convenient. At a fundraiser in 2016, Naotokan once described his attitude towards nuclear power rather cleverly. He said, Mankind learning to harness nuclear power is like a mouse finally figuring out how to build a mousetrap.

His analogy has a deadly accuracy to it. One can admire the mouse's ingenuity, his technical know-how, but the obvious question remains: Do you really understand what you've built? Which brings me back to these people who once stood here on my driveway, who once sat here in this house.

They believed me when I said they were safe, because you don't have to look too hard to find me among the lies. I'm there in every question I didn't ask. I'm there in every doubt I chose to drown in whiskey on the porch. I'm there. I'm no fool, Akiko-san. I know I cannot account for nature.

I know I did not destroy these houses, but I do know that this old proud town has been erased from the world. And as I drove, the thought that my name would forever be among the reasons why was more than I could bear. As the sun set, I came upon a house. My house. This house. I walked around inside, broken glass, roof tiles.

Rooms for two children, windows destroyed, frozen in time. March the 11th, 2011. That morning, my neighbor's little boy, Akio Ueda, was a 12-year-old on a bicycle heading for school by nightfall. He was already destined to be that 22-year-old man face down on the crushed roof of an ambulance in a hospital car park in Yokohama.

And so it is, with so many, immeasurable, unquantifiable, unofficial. My own death in the not-too-distant future can also be traced back to that day. But I'm not one of them. I chose this. I chose it on the day. I picked my way through the fallen beams and broken chairs of this house. This is my dear Akiko-san.

This is where it should end. I will not live in comfort having deprived so many of the same opportunity. I cannot. Instead, I will live with the radiation. I will open my door to it. I will eat the fish. I will drink the water. I will swim in the sea. I will not move my bed from the window nor to the floor below. I will let it into my home.

and I will wait until it decides to take me. Yours, with boundless gratitude for saying, I'm listening. Kiyoshi Stowe. The fire trucks continue to pump seawater into the reactors. Temperature and pressure begin to drop in the containment vessels, and the situation slowly appears to be stabilizing.

That's the end. Yes, didn't you like it? I liked it very much, Akiko. But where's your conclusion? A dissertation needs a conclusion. I say the situation was stabilizing. That's an end to your particular timeline, yes. But you need to summarize, outline lessons learned. I don't know what lessons have been learned, Professor. Well, you have to at least say what happened when it was over. Bring us up to date. But it's not over.

It won't be over for hundreds of years. There's nothing I can say that's going to make that better. You're confusing a conclusion with a happy ending. But people want to know things worked out and they haven't. They want to know there was nothing anyone could do and there was. They want to know it won't happen again and it will. Ethics, Professor. I'm not going to lie. Then just try telling the truth, Akiko. Don't underestimate how much people want that, too.

As of 2022, reactors 1, 2 and 3 at Fukushima Daiichi continue to melt down. Hundreds of workers, many unskilled, many on short-term contracts, struggle round the clock to mitigate the unfolding catastrophe. Every hour, the heart of the reactor emits more than 10,000 times the yearly allowable dose for a stable working environment.

The Olympic torch weaved a strict, predetermined route through the exclusion zone. It passed by the new museum, the new school and the new train station, carefully avoiding the destroyed homes, empty plots and 10-metre-high stacks of black bags containing 20 million cubic metres of contaminated soil that litter the landscape.

the townships of Nami-e, Ōkuma and Futaba, once home to 25,000 residents, remain largely deserted. Though the decontamination of Fukushima Daiichi is barely midway through phase one, the cesium and tritium-rich wastewater can no longer be contained on site. And in 2021, permission was granted by the government to release over a million tonnes into the Pacific Ocean.

The decontamination process is scheduled to conclude in 2060 at a projected cost of 22 trillion yen. Masao Yoshida was reprimanded by TEPCO for insubordination. He died of cancer in July 2013. In the wake of the disaster, Prime Minister Naoto Kan was ousted from government, largely over his handling of the crisis, and became a staunch ally of the anti-nuclear movement.

The government-appointed Independent National Commission stated that the disaster at Daiichi, though triggered by natural events, was man-made, avoidable and the result of lax regulatory oversight and toxic corporate culture. Concluding its report with the words, Across the board, the Commission found ignorance and arrogance unforgivable for anyone or any organisation that deals with nuclear power.

President Shimizu resigned from TEPCO and now sits on the board of Japan's largest oil conglomerate. Though Chairman Tsunihisa Katsumata and other TEPCO executives were acquitted for professional negligence in 2019, in July 2022, a Japanese court ordered Katsumata, Shimizu and two former TEPCO vice presidents to pay a record $95 billion in damages.

The money they are able to pay will go towards the continued decontamination of the Daiichi plant, to the regeneration of Fukushima prefecture and to the rebuilding of its communities.

Though only one death has been officially attributed to the nuclear accident at Daiichi itself, as of 2022, the number of disaster-related deaths, though difficult to measure, is said to be around 3,000, the vast majority of which were suicides. In total,

The earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster of March 11, 2011 claimed the lives of 18,500 people and forced the evacuation of 200,000, 36,000 of whom, 11 years on, remain in temporary housing and will almost certainly never return home.

In Fukushima, Episode 7, Suto was played by Togo Egawa, Akiko by Amy Okamura-Jones, Sanai, Naoko Mori, the tutor, Kevin Shen, the guard, Matt Mikui, and the narrator was Romola Garai. Fukushima was written by Adrian Penketh. The production coordinators were Jonathan Powell and Ben Hollands. Sound design was by Peter Ringrose. The director was Sasha Yevtushenko, and the producer was Toby Swift.

Fukushima from the BBC World Service was a BBC Audio production.